What do Seahorses Eat?

Seahorses may look like horses with fins, but they are actually fish! In the wild, seahorses are carnivores that cling to plants and suck up small prey through their long snouts. These victims are usually small crustaceans like tiny shrimp, but they also eat krill, larval crabs, plankton, aquatic bugs and baby fish. They have no teeth, so everything they eat is consumed whole, and most seahorses spend the whole day sucking in food. As babies, seahorses are so tiny that all they can eat are nearly-microscopic brine shrimp.

When kept in an aquarium, seahorses raised in captivity can be fed special seahorse food, or they will also eat frozen mysis shrimp. Wild seahorses that have been caught, however, will only eat the live food that they are accustomed to.